Monday, July 20, 2009

Brewers - Acquired Lopez

Not much has gone right for Arizona this season but the Lopez signing was one of them. Lopez has been almost as good as Hudson this season and required no long-term commitment (the Hudson 1-year contract was not something that the Diamondbacks had the luxury of being offered). Lopez’s well-earned reputation for poor defense at shortstop causes him to be sorely underrated as a second baseman, where he has always been adequate. As usual, he’s been right around average defensively (career UZR/150 at 2B, -0.4, at SS, -11.2) and as such, is a fairly valuable regular.

This gives the Brewers the luxury of sending Mat Gamel down to Nashville to get regular playing time instead of spotty play in the majors and have the McGehee/Counsell platoon at 3rd.

The hope with Gillespie was that he could at least establish himself as a 4th outfielder, but he’s had some elbow issues this season and he’s hitting unusually poorly (242/332/424 in the PCL ain’t what you want to see from a prospect). He’s already had trouble with his shoulder and playing mostly left, he’s going to have to get healthy and put up better power numbers. Mercedes and his solid fastball have been dominating in the FSL this season. He’s not particularly young, turning a Dominican 23 at the end of the season but he was just converted to a full-time reliever this season and Arizona will promote him quickly as long as the results keep up.

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The Diamondbacks saw Lopez as being on the cusp of ranking as a Type B free agent, but the more important question was whether they would have been willing to offer him arbitration. (You must offer arbitration -- and the player must decline and sign elsewhere -- in order to collect the supplemental pick.)

The club didn’t see it as a worthwhile risk to take. Even though he is a Scott Boras client, Lopez said on numerous occasions how much he enjoyed his time with the Diamondbacks and therefore might have been a risk to accept the one-year deal.

Had he accepted, he would have received something in the $5 million-$6 million range in 2010, not a price that was appealing to the Diamondbacks.

Even if they had offered and Lopez declined, the supplemental pick would have been somewhere in the range of No. 45. The Diamondbacks view RHP Roque Mercedes as about the equivalent of that kind of pick, plus they got OF Cole Gillespie in the deal as well.

Moreover, they save about $1.5 million on Lopez; they’re going to finish out of the playoffs with him or without him.

The club didn’t see it as a worthwhile risk to take. Even though he is a Scott Boras client, Lopez said on numerous occasions how much he enjoyed his time with the Diamondbacks and therefore might have been a risk to accept the one-year deal.